WHY IS WORK EXPERIENCE IMPORTANT?

all qualification requirements are actually intended to ensure the competency requirements and are important if they meet these competencies.

It can be said that in almost all companies, regardless of whether they implement competency-based HR systems or not, the seniority criterion is one of the indispensable criteria in job requirements. As we've probably all seen in job postings, after a few general template competency requirements, there are absolute work experience and education requirements. Of course, if the position is a position that requires qualifications. At the same time, there are extremely low-qualified and inexperienced job seekers who complain about the barrier of the seniority requirement in the labor market. Job seekers in this category sometimes direct their legitimate objections to the company's human resources staff: "Everyone is looking for an experienced employee, so where do we get the experience?" I will try to answer this question in other articles. For now, I would like to share my thoughts on the importance of seniority.

Whether companies know its importance or not, in most cases they come to us with a request for an internship. Based on my observations, I can say that companies mostly accept that an employee with experience knows that job and has learned on the job. In some cases, because they do not find other objective criteria to evaluate, they turn to internship and education criteria. It is true that the internship gives the employee knowledge and skills, but the human resources structure of the company should investigate what this knowledge and skills are, what competencies the company needs that can be gained through internship, and whether those competencies are really present in that employee. All qualification requirements are actually designed to meet competency requirements, and as long as they meet these competencies, work experience is as important as other qualification requirements.

It is true that an internship is one of the most effective ways to learn a job. In connection with this, I would like to share a part that I remember from an article written about Kjell Nordstrom, one of the most famous thinkers in management science:

"My father was a fisherman. He was engaged in fishing all his life. Sometimes he took me fishing with his small boat. After a while, as my experience increased, I began to tell him that such and such a place looks like a good place, let's go fishing here. And my father would only smile and say, "This "No day, the fish are gathered here today," he said, "and he would walk a few miles in that direction. He was right almost every time. I don't ask him how he knew that. He would look at the sky, feel the wind, watch the waves, and analyze the results of it all. he knew where the fish were."

As can be seen from Kjell Nordstrom's memoir, his father, who was a fisherman, acquired the ability to determine the right result by analyzing various factors in the field of fishing as a result of long experiences, knowledge and skills related to fishing. But if we bring that experienced fisherman from the cold waters of the north to the Caspian Sea and send him fishing, I wonder if he will be able to catch fish with that skill? As the fish of warm waters are different, the rules of catching these fish can be different. And in order to learn these rules, it will be necessary to practice for a certain period of time, to determine the correct method by making mistakes.

In order to avoid the need for such a long internship, employees who perform that job should know the theoretical knowledge of that job in advance and strengthen their knowledge with experience. When we say theoretical knowledge, we don't just mean the knowledge given in formal educational institutions. In addition to this knowledge, rules, procedures, processes, technological routes, forms, normative legal acts and other regulatory documents related to that work, written and oral information related to previous practices and precedents, trainings, seminars and courses, on-the-job training and experiences are also theoretical. defines the framework of knowledge.

Work experience is an important criterion for learning a job, but if experience is strengthened with theoretical knowledge, the employee becomes a more professional and skilled worker.